You can’t. A cult is a cult because of its very essence — all are seemingly brainwashed, united in the belief that their way is the right way. Outsiders are just that.

Yes, Rockies owner Dick Monfort deserves respect for not hiding from fan criticism — dick@rockies.com is the new 867-5309. (That’s a fake e-mail address, though apparently if you e-mail the Rockies, or scrawl a note and leave it in your seat at Coors, the owner of the Rockies will actually read it and respond.) But never more than on Monday have the Rockies looked more like a kooky cult.

Monfort, again to his credit, took a frazzled fan to breakfast. Christine Voss asked him about the possibility of hiring a team president to oversee the organization, and Voss said Monfort’s reply was: “If someone from another organization came in, they would want to bring other personnel with them, and that would change the Rockies’ culture.”

THAT’S THE POINT!

The only thing that’s working with the Rockies is nothing. OK, yes, Troy Tulowitzki is the National League starting shortstop in Tuesday’s All-Star Game. And, yes, Jon Gray might have the stuff to make us forget Greg Reynolds. But hiding behind the fear of changing the Rockies’ culture is pretty much the dumbest thing a sports exec has said in his town since someone with the Nuggets advised: “Let’s take Nikoloz Tskitishvili. He’s the next Dirk.”

To change the culture, the Rockies have to change the cult. And the members.

Look, it’s hard not to respect Monfort’s loyalty to his employees, notably general manager Dan O’Dowd, who has watched better baseball executives get fired from other teams while he appears to be an executive emeritus. And it’s not like the Rockies’ executives are buffoons. I sat down with Bill Geivett at spring training and was thoroughly impressed by his baseball knowledge and his willingness to be creative. Geivett and O’Dowd are smart baseball men. They’re just not the right baseball men in Denver.

A PR official did contact The Post late Monday, explaining, “Ms. Voss failed to mention that Dick did say that if someone had the right skill sets and experience, he would not be opposed to bringing someone from outside of the organization to the Rockies in a leadership role.”

I’ll believe it when I see it.

You know who unequivocally can’t build a champion here? An O’Dowd brain trust.

I’m all for in-house promotion, which Monfort suggested to Voss is a small possibility, though he prefers to keep the men he has running the team. Maybe there’s a prodigy on the Rockies’ staff who can rejuvenate the pitching, shore up the lineup, beef up the bench and improve the farm system.

But can someone explain this fear of hiring someone super smart from the outside? What’s the worst that can happen? Is it possible to finish lower than last place?

Former Rockies pitcher Mark Knudson, who lives in the area, made a fascinating point to me via Twitter, about Monfort’s latest comments. The Rockies haven’t hired a president since the untimely death of Keli McGregor in 2010, with Monfort having assumed many of McGregor’s former duties. Monfort said he doesn’t need to change the culture but, as Knudson pointed out, McGregor himself would have thought the team needed a culture change based on its listless play the past few years. And he probably would have fired those who were failing.

The Monfort e-mails fiasco could be a blessing in disguise. Monfort wants to win. And it eats at him that his team is playing so Rockie-ly. But the public embarrassment he’s undergoing, from his rage in his e-mails to his blind trust in his executives, might be just what it takes for him to realize the Rockies are a cult.

Benjamin Hochman was a sports columnist for The Denver Post until August 2015 before leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his hometown newspaper. Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Hochman wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

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